Saturday, June 10, 2006

At this point, I've been running this blog for almost three months. Including this post, I've made 57 entries in that time.

As you can probably gather with the enormity of the previous few posts, I invest quite a bit of time in this venture, and as such, I'd like to make sure that it's the best it can be.

In order to do that, I'd like to get a little bit of feedback from everyone reading this. If you can find the time, I'd appreciate you answering a few questions in the comments:

1) As billed, this blog is intended to be about science, religion and the interactions between the two. Do you, as a reader, have a preference to which of these you enjoy reading (ie, do you like the science lessons more than the commentary on religious going ons)?

2) With the science lesson posts, I constantly struggle to explain topics that aren't covered until somtimes junior level college courses. Given that many people try to put science behind them as soon as they graduage high school, I try to make the explanations as thorough as possible. Do you feel that this explanation is adequate? Or am I underestimate the average person's preexisting knowlege and deserve to be more consise? Or do I not make things simplistic enough which would require being more verbose? Do the analogies help? Do you even bother reading the science posts?

3) As I stated in my first post in this blog, I am a strong atheist. I consider myself politically moderate although it would seem to me that the right has jumped so far overboard, that I look extremely left in comparison. While recognizing that this is my religious/political stance, do you feel that it influences my commentary to such a degree that there are flaws in the arguments (ie, do I mischaracterize the positions of others, apply double standards, etc...)? If so, are there any specific examples you can recall?

10 comments:

I think the science thinking is pitched just right at anybody who would be reading your blog. I don't think any kind of bias gets in the way. I have no idea how I came upon it, but it turned out to be just what I was looking for. I hope that covers it?

I think you have the balance of your blog very well figured out, and I greatly enjoy reading it. More specifically,

1 and 2) I think you strike a fair balance between science lessons and comments on religion and science. Because of my background, most of your science lessons present little which is new to me, so I am more interested in reading your commentaries. Having said that, there have been several occasions where I learned something new from one of your science posts (the one about MESSENGER springs to mind)! :) In my opinion, you explain your concepts very clearly and cover your bases nicely as far as assuming foreknowledge is concerned.

3) While your posts obviously have a slant to them, in my opinion your arguments are almost always well thought-out and you never resort to pointless flaming or name-calling. I appreciate the effort you make to at least mention the other side when appropriate.

4) From the Bad Astronomer. Sense a trend here? :)

5) Keep up the great work! I always look forward to your newest posts.

1. I personaly like a good mixture. Then again, I follow a lot of different things.2. I think you do a hell of a job on the balance, myself.3. With the exception of the atheism (I am not a christian, but not an atheist) we seem to be about the same place in spectrum, so I don't see any bias.4.I want to say it was refrence over from Bad Astronomy, but something is also itching in my brain about Dispatches From The Cultral Wars. So I geuss the true answer is that I don't remember.5. None that I can think of. If I do think of something, I will let you know.